Читать книгу Dr. Wainwright's Patient. A Novel онлайн

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Mrs. Powler is in the place of honour opposite the window. A little woman, with a dark-skinned deeply-lined face, and small sparkling black eyes, the fire in which remains undimmed by the seventy years through which they have looked upon the world, though their sight is somewhat failing. She wears a fierce black front, and a closely-fitting white lace cap over it, and an open raspberry-tart-like miniature of her deceased lord--a rather black and steelly-looking daguerreotype--gleams on her chest. Mrs. Powler likes her drinks, as she does not scruple to confess, and has been sipping from a small silver tankard of cider.

"Who was that just went passt the windor, Jupp?" she said, after a short period of tankard abstraction. "My eyes isn't what they was, and I du 'low I couldn't see, though I'm settin' right oppo-site like."

"Heart alive!" struck in Mrs. Jupp, after a moment's silence, and seeing it was perfectly impossible her better-half could sufficiently masticate the piece of cold beef on which he was engaged in anything like time for a reply--"heart alive! to hear you talk of your eyes, Mrs. Powler! Why, there's many a young gal would give anythin' for such a pair in her head, either for show or for use, either!"